The Straits of Galahesh

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  “Quickly,” Ranos said as he put his arm around Nikandr—not in a brotherly way, but as he might do for someone he was trying to shelter—and led him toward the square that housed the eyrie’s offices.

  “What did Mother tell you?” Nikandr asked.

  “Be quiet until we can make it out of this square and to the—”

  Ranos’s words trailed off as two full desyatni—twenty soldiers—wearing the uniforms of Vostroma entered the square. As it had been since Father had ceded the Duchy to Borund, the Khalakovos had nominal control over the larger cities and the eyrie. The Vostromas lorded themselves over just about everything else.

  The desyatnik of the soldiers, seeing them, called a halt and slipped down from the saddle of his pony. He walked purposefully across the square, as nearly everyone else—windsmen and landsmen alike—cleared the way.

  Nikandr groaned inwardly. He knew the officer. His name was Feyodor. He was old, burly, and angry that he’d been passed up for promotion for years, and though he seemed to know that his failure to rise among the ranks and his quick temper both stemmed from his drinking, it did little to stop him from taking it out on anyone who found themselves in his way. Borund was in a foul mood indeed if he’d sent Feyodor to detain Nikandr.

  Feyodor held up his hand as Nikandr and Ranos approached. Ranos, however, held Nikandr’s arm tightly and guided him toward a handful of ponies, where two more Khalakovan streltsi stood.

  The Vostroman soldiers dismounted, most of them ordering themselves into ranks, weapons at the ready, as the others gathered the ponies.

  “Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo, halt!”

  Ranos kept on pulling Nikandr along until they both heard the sound of a pistol being cocked. Even then Ranos was still determined to continue, but Nikandr feared that if Feyodor were pushed too far, he might indeed fire, and as poor a shot as the man was reported to be, he might hit Ranos, so he stopped and turned.

  Ranos immediately stepped between him and Feyodor. “He is my charge, Feyodor. He’s returning with me to Volgorod.”

  “The Duke requires your brother’s presence, Boyar.” Feyodor’s eyes were bloodshot, and he looked like he dearly wished to be still sleeping, not standing at the eyrie in the day’s early light. He took one step forward, past his men, and spoke low to Ranos, the pistol still pointed toward Nikandr. “I don’t know what he did, but I’ve not seen Borund so angry in years. Best he come now. Things will simmer down before nightfall and you’ll have him back, safe and sound in the Boyar’s mansion.” He glanced once over his shoulder. “I’ll bring him myself if you’ll only step down.”

  “I won’t, Feyodor. He is a Khalakovo, and we stand on Khalakovan ground. He’ll not be taken like a criminal to stand before an interloper.”

  Feyodor’s watery eyes hardened. “He will, Boyar. Trust me in this.”

  Ranos was prepared to press the issue. The tensions between him and Borund had always run high, but the last year had been filled with a series of escalating incidents. The palotza would levy new taxes from Volgorod so that Borund could funnel more of Khalakovo’s money to Vostroma. Ranos would find ways to tilt the books so that the levies produced only a quarter of what Borund had hoped. Borund would levy more in turn, forcing Ranos to become even more creative.

  It had gotten to the point that armed men from the palotza were escorting tax officials to businesses without leave from the Boyar, who by the strict reading of the treaty needed to approve their presence.

  Nikandr stepped in front of Ranos.

  Feyodor was edgy, and worried about losing face, a terrible combination in a man such as him, but he lowered his pistol when Nikandr raised his hands.

  “I’ll go,” Nikandr said, more for Ranos’s benefit than Feyodor’s.

  Ranos breathed heavily, his gaze alternating between Feyodor and Nikandr. He seemed shocked at what Nikandr had done, betrayed, but as the seconds ticked by his shoulders dropped and he released a slow breath.

  “Treat him well, Feyodor,” Ranos said, “or I’ll come for your head.”

  The muscles along Feyodor’s jaw worked. He looked like he wanted to reply, but he merely pointed Nikandr toward his ponies.

  Nikandr mounted up, and in moments they were off, heading along the eyrie road toward Radiskoye.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Nikandr waited as the door to his cell clicked and opened.

  As far as he could tell it was the afternoon of the next day. He’d been given only water and slim bits of dry bread since he’d come. He’d been famished since waking, but now the hunger had faded, replaced by a gnawing emptiness in the pit of his stomach.

  Outside his cell, the rustle of a dress came. A moment later, the door clanked, and in strode Victania. Nikandr stood immediately, and as the guard closed the door and locked it, Nikandr embraced her.

  “You look well,” he said.

  And she did. Her cheeks were healthy and full, her eyes bright and sharp. He still marveled when he saw her, half expecting her to have succumbed to the wasting once more, but the ancients had been kind in this at least. Not only had she recovered physically, she’d regained her abilities with the dark. She’d become one of the strongest of the Matri, rivaling even Mother’s great strength.

  “I’ll sit,” Nikandr said. “I fear this won’t be pleasant.”

  “Don’t smile, Nischka, because it won’t. They know of your trip to Iramanshah.”

  “I’d rather guessed, Tania. What happened? Mother said it was all arranged, that you’d be the one in the drowning basin.”

  “Nataliya came and relieved me early. Somehow they suspected. Perhaps one of the other Matri warned her.” Victania paused, gathering her thoughts before speaking again. “They know of the Maharraht. They know you gave them safe passage to the island.”

  “They were not Maharraht. They were Aramahn.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Nikandr.”

  “I’m not lying. They’ve forsaken the path of violence. The qiram among them are going to ask to be burned.”

  “And the ones who left on the ship?”

  “The same. Believe me, Victania. We’ve come from Rafsuhan, and trouble is brewing, trouble that will eclipse what’s happening in the west.”

  “Don’t change the subject. They’ve convened a tribunal, Nikandr. They’re discussing your transgressions now in Father’s hall. They will find you guilty. The only real question is the punishment that awaits.”

  “They won’t hang me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Victania’s features grew fierce, a look she rarely leveled against him. “Watch your tongue. You don’t know what it’s like here anymore. Did you hear what I said? They’ve convened a tribunal, and they very well may decide to swing you from the end of a rope.”

  “Such things can only be decided at Council.”

  “We are at war, Nischka. And Borund has been licking his gluttonous chops at the seat he already holds in all but name. Think… Think what Ranos would do if his brother were hung in the very courtyard of Radiskoye.”

  Nikandr considered this. Perhaps the war with Yrstanla was more serious than he’d guessed. Vostroma might even fear for its very welfare, and with Khalakovo in thrall, they might just use this incident as an excuse. And if he were hung, Ranos would rally the streltsi of Volgorod and he would come for blood, and then Borund would have two traitor brothers of Khalakovo to present to the other dukes. Many of the duchies, certainly those in the south, had already begun to refer to Khalakovo as the northernmost island of Vostroma. Father’s honored place at Zhabyn’s side or not, the dukes might very well decide to grant Vostroma their wish—for permanent assumption of Khalakovan lands.

  “It will take the northern dukes less than a minute to see through this. They know what a bully Borund is.”

  “If this had happened three years ago—even one year ago—I might have agreed with you, but they are weakened, Nischka. They are tired. And the last thing they want to do is go to war with the South a
gain, especially with the Empire standing on our very doorstep with bloodied swords in their hands.”

  “Go to Ranos,” Nikandr said, “and tell him this. All of it.”

  “He knows, Nischka. But he’s been pushed to the brink. Borund takes and takes and takes, no matter that Father stands at the Grand Duke’s side. He will not allow himself to be pushed further, no matter what you or I or even Father says. And if you cared to spend more time on the shores of your homeland, you’d know that.”

  “Don’t preach to me, Tania. We each find our own way to help. The Maharraht saved my life, and they may very well have saved many lives from the threat building in the east.”

  “Muqallad and the stone—Mother told me of it—but really, how is this different than what we’ve faced from the Maharraht for generations?”

  “Don’t underestimate him, Victania. He is no less strong than Nasim was those years ago, and he now has the Atalayina.”

  “So Mother has said, but when a wolf lies before you in the field…”

  “Don’t throw proverbs at me. The wolf that lies in the woods could feast on our flesh as well, and mark my words, Muqallad will not remain beneath the shadows of the boughs for long.”

  Three soft knocks came at the door.

  Victania glanced over and stood. “I must go. Ranos and I will speak to Borund, Nischka. In the meantime”—she reached the door and knocked on it softly—”don’t do anything stupid.”

  In moments she was gone, leaving Nikandr alone with his thoughts. He waited hours more, wondering what might be happening in the tribunal being held several floors above him.

  He found out as he was beginning, at long last, to nod off.

  The door opened suddenly and jolted him awake.

  Viktor Avilov Vostroma, husband to Atiana’s sister, Mileva, strode into the room, coughing heavily as he came.

  Viktor was a heavyset man, and though he was barrel-chested and older than Nikandr’s father, he had always seemed strong, like a prized mastiff. His pepper-gray beard was trim, and he had a sharp look in his eye that meant he felt he had the upper hand—Viktor had always been a terrible player at trump.

  Had it been Borund himself who’d come to visit him, Nikandr would not have been quite so worried. Borund was taken with the occasional fit of anger, but Viktor was a different sort of animal. He was a minor noble in House Vostroma, a man due little. The only reason he’d been given the hand of Zhabyn’s daughter was because, at the time of the arrangement, Viktor owned the rights to three mines that had become suddenly important when rich veins of jasper had been discovered. Ownership of the mines had been formally transferred to Zhabyn and Viktor had taken Mileva. Knowing Mileva as he did, Nikandr was sure it didn’t take long for Viktor to figure out which end of the bargain had been worse.

  He’d been pushing ever since—if the stories of his bellyaching were to be believed—for a larger title and more holdings, things Zhabyn had been ever more reluctant to grant, but when Khalakovo had been ceded to Vostroma, Viktor had quickly found himself on the next windship to these shores. He, like many on Vostroma, thought it a permanent change in the structure of the Grand Duchy. He’d been vying for Ranos’s title, to push him from the Boyar’s mansion so that he could move in and pull on the Boyar’s coat, and if things continued as they had been, Nikandr wasn’t so sure Borund wouldn’t do it.

  As Nikandr pulled himself up from the bed, Viktor pulled a chair out from the nearby table and fell into it. He scratched at his beard and clasped his hands around his ample belly, his jaundiced eyes glaring at Nikandr as if he’d just caught a hound escaped from the kennel. Nikandr refused to sit. Instead, he leaned against the stone wall and stared down at Viktor as if he were a boy.

  Viktor frowned and coughed again before speaking. “Do you know what they say of you in the halls of Radiskoye?”

  Nikandr stared, keeping his expression relaxed.

  “They say you’ve forsworn vodka in favor of araq. They say you keep the stones of a qiram and wear them in your cabin at night.” Viktor paused. “They say you find solace only between the legs of the Aramahn. People talk, Nischka. The truth grows twisted in the telling, but with you I wonder if they’ve not struck truth.”

  “What do you want, Vostroma?”

  Viktor chuckled, pleased with himself. “Three sotni were sent this morning to round up the enemy you brought to these shores.”

  “Iramanshah will not give up their own.”

  “In this case”—Viktor grinned, a ghastly affair filled with yellowed teeth and baggy eyes—“they just might. The real question is whether you’ll admit to helping them.”

  “What difference would that make? You’ve already had your trial.”

  Viktor frowned and glanced back toward the door—clearly wondering who had told him of the proceedings but unwilling to ask—but then he relaxed and a satisfied smile came over him. “It may matter, Khalakovo. If you admit to it, perhaps some will be spared, the children, perhaps the women.”

  A vision of Zanhalah and the others from Ashdi en Ghat came to Nikandr, and his stomach sank. “They won’t give up their own,” he said again, more to convince himself that none would die on account of his actions.

  “Say it, Nischka. Say that you aided them. Surely there are some you wish to save, and if you confess, I’m sure that can be arranged.”

  Nikandr nearly did. He hated that Viktor, this jackal, this carrion crow, had come in place of Borund himself. He hated that he had to sit before an interloper in his own house and debate whether to trade the lives of the Maharraht—a people he had been raised to hate—over his own. But then he began to wonder why the question was being asked at all. Just how much had Nataliya seen while she was in the drowning basin? She had taken over some time during that night, and from what Victania had said, she would have had plenty of time to watch, but perhaps she’d been too late. Perhaps her blood had been up and she’d had trouble slipping into the right state of mind to take the dark.

  Nikandr decided he’d been wrong earlier. Sending Viktor to exact a confession had been the perfect choice. Keep Nikandr off balance and angry so that something might slip.

  Viktor began coughing again, and this time it didn’t stop for a good long while. He leaned forward and coughed heavy and long into his closed fist, his back heaving, his body rocking back and forth. When Viktor raised himself to a sitting position once more, his eyes were red, and the yellow at the corners of his eyes stood out even more.

  By the ancients, why hadn’t he noticed it before? Yellow eyes were common enough, especially among aged men who itched when their vodka glass grew dry, but it was one of the early signs of another condition.

  “How long have you had it?” Nikandr asked.

  Viktor stared at him. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.” He placed his ring finger over his lips, the not-so-subtle signal one used in social situations to indicate someone had the wasting.

  He stared at Nikandr’s finger as if he was going to deny it, but they both knew Nikandr had had the wasting for nearly a year, and now that Nikandr was on to him, it was as plain as day.

  Viktor stood and stalked over to the door and rapped on it three times.

  “You were right, Khalakovo. The Aramahn refused to identify the Maharraht you delivered to them, but Borund’s orders were clear. When they refused, ten Aramahn were lined up at random outside the entrance to Iramanshah. Muskets were trained on them, and we would have killed them, and ten more every hour—”

  The muffled sound of keys jingling filtered into the room, and the door swung wide.

  “—but the mahtar volunteered.” With that, Viktor made to leave.

  “Wait! Viktor, what do you mean?”

  Viktor turned back. His face was once again satisfied, but now it was grim as well. “The mahtar. All seven of them. They volunteered themselves to be hung in the place of the Maharraht. And Borund agreed.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  N
ikandr slept fitfully, thinking of Hilal. He knew the other six mahtar as well, but he knew Hilal the best. He’d taken Fahroz’s seat after she’d left with Nasim for Mirashadal. He was a gentle man. A learned man. But most of all, he was a caring man. He, much like Ashan, seemed to embody the calmness of center that the Aramahn were ever searching for.

  Had it been Hilal who thought of the idea of offering themselves for the lives of the Maharraht? It had been a day Hilal most likely thought he’d never see: so many Maharraht forsaking their ways and taking up the life of an Aramahn once more. Many of the children would never have been exposed to any other life, and here they were being offered to the people their parents had betrayed in their quest to drive the Landed back to the Motherland.

  And now, in order to protect them, Hilal had given himself. He and the other mahtar. In a way, it made sense—the Aramahn were quick to sacrifice themselves for the greater good—but that made it even more discouraging. This was an unprecedented event. One or two Maharraht had returned to the fold of the Aramahn over the years, but never so many at once. It might even have become a bridge to peace. But not now, not if those six men and women were killed.

  In the end, Nikandr couldn’t sleep. He woke well before the four Vostroman streltsi came for him. When they did, he pulled on his cherkesska and followed them, hoping to speak with Borund away from others where he might at least listen to reason.

  When he came at last to the long hall that led past Radiskoye’s central garden, he could see through the leaded glass windows that a gibbet had been stood in the center of the courtyard. He could see men gathered there, but he didn’t realize that none of them were Khalakovan until he stepped out from the hall and into the chill morning air. The smell of the sea filled the air, and the sound of the surf rose up from the base of the cliffs far below the eyrie of Radiskoye.

  A handful of Vostroman royalty watched him pace forward. Borund and Viktor were among them, and they were flanked by two dozen streltsi wearing the seal of Vostroma. Their faces, to a man, were judgmental, angry, as if Nikandr had somehow called down the fury of Yrstanla on their homeland. He thought surely there would be at least one representative from Khalakovo. Ranos or Victania or Yvanna. But there were none.